A school, especially a private one such as BYU, can offer a scholarship for whatever reason they want. If they wanted to offer a scholarship to a tiddly-winks champion, they could do it. The real issue is money.

Scholarships cost money. Coaches cost money. Equipment costs money. Facilities costs money. Travel costs money.

Then there are Title IX issues -- a major hurdle. A school cannot offer more male athletic scholarships than they offer female scholarships. If BYU were to start offering rugby scholarships, they would have to either cut back on male athletic scholarships elsewhere, or begin offering more scholarships to females somewhere else. The most obvious scenario here would be to bring the BYU women's rugby team under its wing at the same time they bring in the men's team. But that would mean that instead of incurring the costs of one rugby team, they would then have to finance two.

The men's team with its sold-out home games and sponsorships likely breaks even or at least comes reasonably close, but it's a fair bet that the ladies' team doesn't.

Personally, I'd like to see them include the men's team (currently ranked #1) and the women's team (currently ranked #3) in the Athletic Department, but I doubt there is enough money to do that without dipping into tithing funds, and the church has made it clear that BYU athletics has to be self-supporting. They do not want to ask a Ute fan or a Aggie fan to pay tithing to support BYU sports.